Less water means less rice for Yolo County farmers this year

As planting season gets under way, Yolo County farmers are prepping for an allocated year, or water rationing -- the first time since 2009.

With Clear Lake about half capacity and Indian Valley Reservoir approximately one-third full, "we're not in real good shape," explained Tim O'Halloran, general manager of the Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District.

Specifically, Clear Lake is 82,924 acre-feet of capacity, where total storage is 150,000, while Indian Valley Reservoir is 115,900 acre-feet full, where 300,000 is full storage capacity.

Due to the lack of available water and the cost to purchase a supply, some farmers will not be growing rice at all this year, or will scale back significantly, said to O'Halloran.

Others are considering switching to crops that require less water. He spoke specifically about farmers in western Yolo County, or those west of the Bypass.

"The real beauty of western Yolo County irrigation is ground water," said O'Halloran, who explained that supply is in pretty good shape. "We're very blessed with that water supply in this county."

O'Halloran represents the Water Conservation District for the Water Resources Association of Yolo County. The Association celebrated its 20th anniversary Monday, where O'Halloran briefed members on present water conditions.

Meanwhile, the district started irrigation releases Wednesday. That's about a month earlier than usual.

O'Halloran anticipates about 80,000 acres to sign up for water allocation, of which around 55,000 will be irrigated. Farmers will pay $24 per acre-foot of water. Irrigating one acre of tomatoes, for example, takes approximately two to three acre-feet of water.

This year is "no where near as severe as 2009," according to O'Halloran when allocation started at .28 acre-feet (meaning how many acres farmers signed up, multiplied by .28, is the amount of water received). This year, allocation begins around 1.55 acre-feet.

That means farmers will receive about five times more water per acre than in 2009.

Woodland has received 15.28 inches of rain since July, right on par with the season average of 15.59 inches. Still, water is short.

Due to the number of variables, for storm intensity to water run-off patterns, O'Halloran said there is really no "short answer" for this. Part of the answer, he said, is that the year began with very low carry-over water in the lake and revision.

"We were doing great (with rain storms) in November and December and thought we'd have a full reservoir. If we'd had one more two-inch storm in December, we would have probably filled up," he said.

During the storms in December Clear Lake released 10,000 acre-feet of water for 10 days.